Rate the Unit-Three Houses, Day 40: Hapi

[Barren]

Rules

- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard or Maddening Mode. Also, they should be based on when the unit is first available. (When rating a unit, please specify whether you are rating assuming Hard or Maddening.)

- Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted (unless they fall into the general parameters of the average rating, but reasoning is still strongly encouraged on those even if you just wanna quote people) — incredibly low scores or high scores without proper justification will not be counted. Don't put in some random text thinking it'd count as justification. Put in at least a little thought and give REAL reasoning.

- Numbers for votes, please - not something like "Marcus/10", etc. Proper Justification will be determined by me and whoever decides to help.

+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is okay, but no more.

- Votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Makes it easy to calculate, please and thank you~!

-The rating you give to a unit assumes a good build for said unit-nothing among the lines of, "Dedue is 2/10 because he's a bad mage."

-The ranking assumes no grinding and no stat booster items

- Make votes easily visible, please! "[Explanation text]: So, overall, I think X unit is a 7.5/10, with a +1 bias included for being hawt/cute/funny/etc.."

- Every ranking phase ends approximately at 20:00 PST. Do the math for your timezone, please!

-We will ask you to not use the "Not X unit" reason. Because it will be used a lot. I.E, do not say "Linhardt bad because not Lysithea."

-The Black Eagles may be assessed based on their performances in either Silver Snow or Crimson Flower, other than when not applicable.

 

Scores:

Dimtri: 9.14

Byleth: 9.05

Edelgard: 9.00

Claude: 8.977

Felix: 8.625 

Lysithea: 8.472

Petra: 8.34

Leonie: 8.2

Jeritza: 8.2

Ferdinand: 7.78

Catherine: 7.7556

Sylvain: 7.66

Balthus: 7.5

Ingrid: 7.34

Hilda: 7.31

Yuri: 7.28

Seteth: 7.2273

Bernadetta: 7.125

Linhardt: 7.11

Marianne: 6.9769

Mercedes: 6.756

Shamir: 6.65

Constance: 6.6

Dorothea: 6.375

Cyril: 6.0454

Dedue: 5.8571

Alois: 5.75

Annette: 5.5375

Hubert: 5.525

Ignatz: 4.88

Flayn: 4.583

Caspar: 4.32

Hanneman: 4.18

Lorenz: 3.8077

Raphael: 3.7273 

Ashe: 3.69 (nice)

Manuela: 3.1

Gilbert: 2.27

Anna: 1.978

 

 

Underscore: Black Eagles

Bold: Blue Lions

Itallics: Golden deer

Purple: Faculty

Boldunderscoreditallics: DLC

Average score for Black Eagles: 6.94

Average score for Blue lions: 6.82

Average score for Golden Deer: 6.543

Average score for Faculty: 5.57 (rounded, it was a very very long number)

Average score for Ashen Wolves: 7.12

[Dark Holy Elf]

We're finally at the end.

The good: Two things I love to see on a magic unit are 3-range and Physic; Hapi gets both. While she gets them a little later than other units (B reason and only neutral faith for Physic), she still gets them. Speaking of things that it's better to get late than never, she has Warp at A. The rest of her dark magic list has some nifty tools in it: Banshee at C (since she starts at D+, she gets this fast), and Hades at A, the strongest attack spell in the game (meaning she'll be #2 for spell damage as a Valkyrie or Dark Knight, trailing only Lysithea). So in other words, she has Linhardt's faith list (almost) combined with an actual good Reason list, and that's pretty sweet.

She has boons in both Riding and Flying, giving her good access to both the new DLC classes. And while she doesn't have a boon in Lance, she does start randomly with a D in them (do the Wolves get some free training even before the start of Chapter 2? Seems that way), getting her a little closer to Dark Knight.

For a mage, she can kind take some hits: 26+35% HP trails only Lorenz, and 7+45% res is just behind the dedicated healers.

The less good: Hapi's stats otherwise aren't great. 6+40% speed is mediocre (ahead of only Linhardt and Constance, comparable to Annette) and 4+15% defence is poor as usual as well. 4+25% charm is bad too.

Hapi has an authority bane, and is only neutral in faith, both of which are bummers for her skill growth. Warp is definitely a slog for her, as is getting to some of the better magical battalions. Between the authority and charm it's tempting to give her the Stride battalion, but that erodes her decent power.

She also doesn't get a magical combat art, a distinction she shares with Linhardt and Mercedes among the human mages. So at melee, many other mages can deal more damage than her, especially before she gets Hades.

Overall, just as Constance feels a bit like discount Lysithea, Hapi feels a bit like discount Dorothea. Maybe Marianne is her actually best comparison: both have some annoying spots on their talent list but have strengths in riding/flying, with Hapi having better reason spells and eventually Warp but Marianne having magical combat arts and authority/charm. That's a pretty good character to compare to. One of the better wolves, a group in which everyone is good but not great, Hapi gets a 7/10 (Maddening).

[L3xandr3]

Ah yeah, Hapi! My favorite TH character! I adore her. But this isn’t the place for me to go on about her, now is it? Stats, away!

     Skill Levels:      Boons in Reason (D+), Riding (D), and Flying (E). Like the other Ashen Wolves, she has a bizarre Talent: Axes. She has a Bane in Brawling and Armor (irrelevant) and Authority (Relevant).

     Abilities:     Monstrous Appeal makes her a strong Monster killer. As a side note, it appears to affect Gambits, but can anyone confirm if it does affect Gambits?. Rally Dexterity (D) is pointless. Battalion Wrath (C) can be hilarious, though. Getting up a Vantage+Wrath build on a magic unit with absurd range sounds good to me. To get normal Vantage+Wrath you can just a) grind out the masteries with a rusted weapon or b) use her as an adjutant until she gets them.

     Arts:     Her only Art is from her Axe talent, which gives Exhaustive Strike. It only does damage if you use a Bolt Axe, in which case you literally burn Arcane Crystals. That Talent is more useful for getting her to B+ Axes so she can get the Wrath build going.

     Spells:     Miasma, Swarm, Banshee (C), Death (B), and Hades (A). No Dark Spikes, But still pretty good. Physic (C), Seraphim (B), and Warp (A) from Faith. Why Seraphim? Aside from that, very good spell list here.

     Stats:     12+45% Magic and 8+45% Resistance are good. 9+45% Dexterity and 7+40% Speed are Ok. 27+35% Hp with her good Res allows her to soak Magic hits. 7+35% Strength nulls fair a bit of weight. 4+20% Luck, 4+15% Defense, and 5+25% Charm is awful.

     Classes:     Beginner- Monk

Intermediate- Mage. Mercenary to get Vantage

Advanced- Valkyrie. Warrior for Wrath

Master- Dark Knight? Between that and Valkyrie for her final class

          The Verdict

Potent anti-monster capabilities, Solid spell list, decent stats, Wrath build, good Movement, good Range… Of course, I’m not blind to her flaws, as she will die to almost any melee damage and will oft be doubled in Maddening. But for all those good points? She’s one of the better mages, with good utility and pseudo-tanking potential (Wrath built), so I’m giving her 8/10

Also,

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

(do the Wolves get some free training even before the start of Chapter 2? Seems that way)

They get the first month worth of training. Still doesn't explain the base D Lances (what with her lacking a boon), but it does explain the partially filled Exp bar for Lances.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Hapi, considered on Maddening. 

The Bad

She has a few bad stat areas, of course. Her Defense (4 + 0.15x) is quite terrible, and while her HP (27 + 0.35x) is better, it hardly makes for good physical bulk. Her Luck (4 + 0.20x) is also pretty bad, which... is in character, at least. And her low Charm (5 + 0.25x) leaves her struggling with offensive gambits.

In terms of proficiencies, perhaps her most notable bane is in Authority. So she'll require more effort to get into good batallions. As for weapon types, she has a bane in Gauntlets, which... doesn't really matter, if she's in mounted and/or magic classes. Her last bane comes in Armor, so certifying in Armor Knight, and getting Weight -3, aren't really in the cards for her. Oh, and she joins with E Faith, which sucks for magical builds... unless she's recruited in chapters 3/4/5, as a Monk. In which case, she brings Heal from the get-go.

What else? I guess we could talk about her combat arts. She doesn't get any. Okay, there's one - Exhaustive Strike, from her budding talent in Axes. So, not very good - it's a serious shame they didn't give her a magical art.

The Good

Unlike Constance, Hapi has multiple good stats. Note that these are based off her values as a level 3 Commoner. Her Magic (12 + 0.45x), while not among the highest in the game, is solid nonetheless. Her Dexterity (9 + 0.45x), too, provides a welcome boost to her hit and crit rates. Hapi's Resistance (8 + 0.45x) is very good, and in conjunction with her okay HP, lets her sponge spells. Her Speed (7 + 0.40x) is none too shabby. And her Strength (7 + 0.35x) is quite decent for a magic specialist, helping her offset spell weights.

Looking at proficiencies, Reason (D+) is her premier boon, letting her cakewalk into more spells and Fiendish Blow. She's strong in a couple movement areas, too - a Riding (D) boon helps her get relevant skills (Dex +4, Move +1), while Flight gives her easy access to Darting Blow from Pegasus Knight. Oh yeah, and even though it's neutral for her, she comes with D Lances. Finally, there's her budding talent in Axes. This can help her get Armor Knight certification, or Death Blow if you want a weird physically-offensive Hapi.

I mentioned no combat arts, but let's talk spells for a second. Hapi is one of the few units to take up the dark arts, which may or may not have a story reason. Her Reason list is a good one - Swarm is lightweight and debuffs Speed, Banshe can freeze the foe in place, Death has a welcome 1~3 range, and Hades features an absurdly high Might. As for Faith, she has possibly the single best spell list in the game. Physic is ranged healing from shortly after joining, Seraphim is like the only good offensive white magic (although, somewhat redundant on Hapi), and Warp is awesome repositional support. And she has high enough Magic to be quite effective with these tools.

As for classes, Valkyrie is the most apparent one, with her Reason and Riding boons. Once she's gotten Uncanny Blow, however, she might consider going Dark Knight for the extra damage. Ah, but what if she wants extra spell casts? Gremory doubles up both her offensive and support options, while Bishop only helps on the White side, but also gives her a stronger Physic. With her Flight boon, Dark Flier is worth considering for the aerial mobility. On the physical side, she has the proficiencies go into the Wyvern classes, and deal hybrid offense. While her mobility will be great, this means missing out on spells.

What else? Well, her personal is a really cool one. Dealing effective damage against all monsters not only means increased damage, but also the ability to break a shield with a single spell. Attracting monsters is generally not quite as nice, but I found it to be avoidable, for the most part. Note that this works not just with spells, but also weapons or combat arts, should she go that route. She also has Rally Dexterity as a minor support tool. Finally, there's her Crest - Major Timotheos offers a 20% chance to conserve recovery magic, so more Physic casts. And having a Crest lets her use Thyrsus, or perhaps Crusher, unpenalized. 

The Verdict

How does the deadpan mage girl from the forest village stack up? Well, her physical options are limited at best, and she suffers an Authority bane. Her physical bulk, luck, and charm are all poor as well. Still, her spell lists are honestly excellent on both sides, letting her succeed in both offense and support. And being strong in a couple movement types, with the DLC at hand, gives her highly-mobile casting options. Her personal ability makes her great on monster-heavy maps, while Rally Dex and a Major Crest really round out her performance. All in all, I feel good closing out this series with a rating of 7 out of 10.

[Barren]

All good things must come to an end as we can finally end this series. It's been fun though as we all got a chance to review each individual unit based on our own experience with them. So the last character we talk about today is Hapi. She's a refugee at the Kingdom of Faerghus and then gets relocated to Abyss. What kind of potential does she have? For the last time let's review a character. This is assuming hard mode.

Hapi is the fourth member of the Ashen Wolves and she has some interesting things she brings to the table. First off, while none of her stat growths exceed 45%, these growths are in magic, dex and resistance. Her speed could be better but a 40% growth isn't the end of the world. Her strength and HP are at a low 35% growth and her defense is even worse at a 15% growth. Hapi's Charm and Luck aren't much better either with a 25% and 20% growth respectively. Her personal ability Monstrous Appeal allows her to deal extra damage to monsters. This can be helpful on certain missions especially Silver Snow since that route is crawling with monsters. Hapi bears the crest of Timotheos which occasionally allows her to preserve her white magic. So if you're lucky she can hold onto spells like Physic and Warp as long as her crest allows it.

Her boons consist of Reason, Riding and Flying with a budding talent in Axes. She has banes in brawling, authority and heavy armor. So she'll have a harder time getting into War Cleric (not that you would honestly want to anyways), equip better battalions and get weight -3 since some of her tomes are pretty heavy. She may be neutral in faith but like Constance, if you recruit her between chapters 3 - 5 she'll start with her faith rank at D. Though even then it'll take a while to get all of her faith spells. When unlocking her budding talent in Axes she gets Exhaustive Strike. It's honestly not all that good. She could have used something else like Lightning Axe would have been amazing on her. She also starts off with a lance rank of D interestingly enough and comes with tempest lance. This means that she can easily slip into Dark Knight later on. Her reason spell list consist of Miasma (which she already has), Swarm at rank D+, Banshee at rank C, Death at rank B and Hades at rank A. Having Swarm and Banshee available is a huge boon for her since she can either help lower the enemy's speed making it easier to double attack them or stop them from moving entirely. These qualities help make fighting stronger enemies more bearable. Her faith spells consist of Physic at rank C, Seraphim at rank B and Warp at rank A. While it will take awhile for Hapi to get these spells, they are incredibly useful. Physic for longer range healing, Seraphim while redundant on her considering her personal ability but hey another offensive spell helps and Warp is great for LTC runs or just sending help in general.

Her class options are quite obvious, Monk for Magic +2 then Mage for Fiendish Blow. You won't have to worry about her hit rate issues because she can easily slip into Valkyrie. One of the better magical mounted classes. Sure the growth rates from the class isn't the best but the extra range you get with black and dark magic is always nice even with 6 move. You still get Canto and being able to play hit and run is always vital. Not to mention that you unlock Uncanny Blow which is Hit +30 upon initiating combat. It's a fantastic ability to bring for any attack that has a shaky hit rate. Dark Magic tends to not have the best accuracy but with Uncanny Blow fixing that issue this makes them worth while. As mentioned earlier Hapi has a very easy time slipping into Dark Knight thanks to her boons and her early D rank in lances. Dark Knight having 7 move but no extra range is a trade off going from Valkyrie to DK, but Valk can be a nice bridging class. And Dark Knight has better stat growths than Valkyrie so there is that too. Hapi also works well as a Gremory since they offer double uses of all magic. If you're the odd type that wants to experiment with Axes, she could go Warrior for Wrath, especially if you're leveling up her swords to unlock Mercenary for Vantage. She could also go Wyvern Lord thanks to her boon in flying. She could also go Dark Flier beforehand just to get Transmute. Transmute boosts all of your stats by 3 if you're hit with a magic attack which can be okay pending on the map. She gets Rally Dex at Authority rank D and then Battalion Wrath at Authority rank C. Having Alert Stance+ and Battalion Wrath can always be a fun combination to use.

Overall, I think Hapi is another good unit to bring. I rate her 7.5/10. Hapi certainly has plenty to offer and she doesn't disappoint. Having a combo of Physic, Warp, Banshee, and Swarm is quite powerful and not to be ignored whatsoever.

On that note, this is where we end the "Rate the character" series that went on for more than a month. I hope everyone had fun :D

[LoneStar]

We're at the end are you happy? She's Hapi. So we have another Dark Magic user, and she has some pretty good Reason as well as Faith spells. She has strengths in Reason, Flying, and Riding so she can get into any of those mounted mage classes with no issue, and she comes with some Lance rank for Dark Knight down the line. A few weaknesses is a lack of combat arts and a flaw in Authority. Her strength growth (35%) is a higher than the other mages, so this help mitigate the spell weight penalties, but Maddening enemies are pretty fast any ways.

So she doesn't have any really meaningful combat arts. She gets Exhaustive Strike from her Axe Budding Talent, but I'm not a fan of that combat art, and she doesn't do well with Strength based things anyway. Rally Dexterity can be helpful to help a team mate's hit rate if she isn't doing anything else. On to her spells, Swarm is useful to lower an enemy's speed, which in Maddening the foes will have a lot of. Death is a 3 range spell so that's good. Banshee locks a foe in place, so good for pressure control, and the others are simply damaging. In her faith list she has Physic and Warp, so great support there, the only thing is that she doesn't have a talent for Faith so getting Warp at A rank will take some time. She also has Seraphim, but that is redundant with her personal skill, and I'm pretty sure the effective damage doesn't stack.

Speaking of her personal skill, it grants her effective damage against monsters, but she also attracts them. This is a typically avoidable detriment, but it can be useful on the Azure Moon final map to always bait Edelgard into attacking her, while she has a Seiros Shield equipped. Her major Timotheos crest can conserve faith spell uses, which is fine, but running out of spells isn't really an issue.

Now for classes, as I mentioned before she can get into any of the mounted mage classes pretty well. Valkyrie is a nice Advanced class option, and Uncanny Blow is great. Upgrading to Dark Knight is suggested so she can hit harder, and its a trade of 1 attack range for 1 mov. She should probably have Dark Magic Range+1 by then or she can use Caduceus Staff/Thyrsus. She can also be a Dark Flier. Her budding talent in Axe can open up Wyvern, but that's for some Hard mode memeing. If she had Lightning Axe or something it probably wouldn't be as bad. She also has the tools to make a great dancer: Physic, Riding strength, and a 3 range spell.

My Rating: 7.1/10. Overall a pretty solid mage with plenty of utility. +0.1 for my boy @TheChoZenOne.

[salinea]

Since I followed the series, I wanted to make a visual representation of the final ranking

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

So, are we going to be doing a "Day 41" thread? That way, we can see Hapi's average rating. And I was planning to put my own comprehensive list as a comment in that post. Not trying to be a choosy beggar, I really appreciate the work @Benice, @Barren, and others have done in putting this on.

[Benice]

9 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

So, are we going to be doing a "Day 41" thread? That way, we can see Hapi's average rating. And I was planning to put my own comprehensive list as a comment in that post. Not trying to be a choosy beggar, I really appreciate the work @Benice, @Barren, and others have done in putting this on.

Sure-I'll try to make a master post tomorrow with links to every other day in the competition.

I would also like to thank @Dayni, @Sooks and  @Barren for picking up my slack!

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Benice said:

Sure-I'll try to make a master post tomorrow with links to every other day in the competition.

I would also like to thank @Dayni, @Sooks and  @Barren for picking up my slack!

Speaking of slack, I still have to rate Flayn through to Jeritza.

[Sooks]

9 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Speaking of slack, I still have to rate Flayn through to Jeritza.

I didn’t rate Alois, Constance, or now Hapi. I’ll try to whip something up before tomorrow if there’s gonna be a day 41 though.

Edit: And you’re welcome Benice!

Edited November 20, 2020 by Sooks

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 minutes ago, Benice said:

Sure-I'll try to make a master post tomorrow with links to every other day in the competition.

I would also like to thank @Dayni, @Sooks and  @Barren for picking up my slack!

Sounds good! And seconding the appreciation to @Dayni and @Sooks, whom I missed before. I'll probably need the time to go back to all the threads and organize my ratings, haha.

[Barren]

I'm glad to help out @Benice. I liked the idea of this series and I was happy to contribute however I could

[Dark Holy Elf]

To echo others, thank you to everyone who made this rating thread possible; it was a lot of fun!

[Sooks]

7.5/10, I’m sure anyone would be Hapi with taking home that rating. Hapi is rocking some nice base growths of 45% in magic, dexterity AND res. Her 15% growth in defense and her 25% growth in charm suck, though, as does her 35% in HP and I guess her 20% in luck despite it not being a super important stat. Her 40% in speed is okay. She has boons in reason, riding, and flying, which make her a nice candidate for the new dlc classes dark flier and Valkyrie (we’re allowed to consider those since she is a dlc unit right?). She also possesses a budding talent in axes which gives her a combat art that does additional damage based on the remaining durability of the axe... her strength is bad enough that I don’t know why you would be using axes on her unless it’s for bolt axes, which might be nice to pair with wyvern lord and make a nice magic wyvern lord. Maybe. Anyway, she has banes in brawling, authority (ugh), and armor. She doesn’t care about brawling or armor, but authority banes seriously screw over units to be honest. She joins with D+ in reason and Ds in lances and riding, which are very nice for chapter 2. Since she’s obviously a magic unit, we should take a look at her spell list. She uses dark magic instead of black magic, which is another slap to the face in terms of viability, but since you also have the dlc classes now, she can become a valkyrie which benefits dark magic, and that’s good. So for reason has miasma, banshee, death, swarm, and hades (excluding the symbols at the end). Miasma is your standard beginner dark magic skill, banshee debuffs enemy speed (which is good for Hapi), death has a high critical rate and hades is your standard nuke spell. Not a bad list at all. In faith she gets physic, seraphim, and warp on top of the usual spells. She doesn’t really need seraphim because of her personal ability, but physic alone can make her a good healer, and warp is insanely useful. Too bad she’s only neutral in faith and learns warp at A rank, which doesn’t leave her much time to use it. Her personal ability, by the way, makes it so every attack of hers deals effective damage to monsters, which breaks whichever shield point/monster tile she attacks. That’s very useful.

All in all, Hapi is a fairly good unit. She a nice spell list when she can actually capitalize off if dark magic, some very good growths, and a nice personal, held back by some lower growths and a bane in authority.

She also learns rally dexterity.

.....I didn’t know where to fit that in there. 

[Dark Holy Elf]

18 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Hapi is rocking some nice base growths of 45% in magic, dexterity AND res. Her 15% growth in defense and her 25% growth in charm suck, though, as does her 35% in HP and I guess her 20% in luck despite it not being a super important stat.

To be fair, luck is more important than dex in every way if you're a mage. (They're both worth 0.5 hit and 0.5 crit, but only luck is worth +1 critical avoid.) I agree that luck isn't that important, this is more to stress how bad dex is for mages.